Will was playing Solitaire with Abu when it hit him in a wave of panic.

"I left me flask in the dagnabbit library."

Abu closed one eye and used the other to eye Will like he ought to quit drinking so much.

Will patted Abu's head absently. "Come on, you knucklehead. Real life is boring, I have to drink a truckload to make it feel less dead to be alive." Rubbing his clown-smile scar, he pressed his lips together. "Though I suppose, if I weren't so wasted all the time, it wouldn't have taken me…two weeks?" He squinted uncertainly. "To notice it wasn't here? But more like…the next morning.

"Did I notice it was gone?" he wondered aloud. "And then forget I noticed? You know what, maybe I've already got it back from the library. I guess I'll need to dig me a hole to find out."

Abu patted his shoulder to say, "Sorry your brain malfunctioned." Then he got back to his game of Solitaire, turning his furry backside to his chum.

Will was almost too drunk to notice Abu's snub, but he managed to mumble to himself, "He's got a point." Then he rolled up the sleeves of his long-sleeved shirt, found a shovel leaning against Regina's fence and took it without asking, then hovered it over his shoulder and whistled on his way to the place he liked to hide things. A clearing in the forest beyond Toll Bridge.

There was a pretty cocker spaniel covering a bone. She did a double-take when she saw him and sat on the half-covered bone.

Will walked over to stroke her under the chin. "No worries, sweet thing. I won't rat you out," he promised, "but don't mind me looking for me flask."

The outdoor air was so frosty when he reached the shovel down, it bit his nose. The cold breaking his skin would have been bothersome—if he wasn't too drunk to care about anything but thrusting the shovel into the dirt.

Nevertheless, when he swallowed enough frosty air and it penetrated his lungs, he did notice how it made him gasp. "Good thing this isn't Arendelle!" he huffed. Personally, he liked sheets of rain better than swallowing frosty air, but he was sure some people loved to be feared and despised being loved, so to each their own.

Thirty minutes of hard labor, and his shovel struck nothing. His antsy mind gave up on that spot and found another area. He thrust his shovel down, and this time he hit gold within a few minutes.

Anticipation shone on his face as he slowly revealed the object, which turned out to be…

"Darn, just my sack of buried gold coins." He tossed Regina's shovel aside and sat somewhat grumpily. He'd hidden the coins to screw with Abu because Abu had gone to New York City and returned with some expensive necklaces and the gold coins. The Merry Men had teased him, and Abu had thrown his coins at them in irritation. He'd been too distracted to scoop them up before leaving because a mud-covered Pit bull had come, bearing teeth and threatening to kill Abu. The monkey had hitched his sack of necklaces over his shoulder and made himself scarce. Will had gathered the coins, tossed them in a sack, and buried them to see how angry Abu would become before he returned them to their "rightful" owner (if theft made Abu their rightful owner).

This was something that had occurred three years ago, so Will was frankly surprised he even had trickles of memory of this incident. He only had a couple of drops. It somewhat amazed him his initial reaction hadn't been, "Some other bastard is burying coins! I bet it's Jefferson!"

Of course, he knew Jefferson would never get his rich hands calloused by a shovel, so blaming Jefferson would be a huge joke to him. Jefferson did seem to believe Will was stalking him, but Will knew Jefferson wasn't to blame for life being weird for him.

He got to work again, checking another spot. And another. The air was starting to warm up as dawn gave birth to sunrise then late afternoon and Will continued with his obsessive digging. His shirt was off, and Abu had paused his seventeenth game of Solitaire to bring the human a sandwich he'd nicked from a shop. Subconsciously, Will wolfed the food down gratefully, but consciously, he had no awareness of what he was doing. Nor did he notice Abu snatching up the sack of gold coins and vanishing with it.

All of a sudden, someone lay a hand on Will's arm. "Hold up!" the voice called.

Will froze, his heart arresting as it occurred to him the sheriff may have caught him…but Graham had been replaced by Emma, and this was a man's voice…or had Emma been replaced by Graham? Urgh, his brain was malfunctioning.

So weak, he grasped the collar of the man's shirt without knowing who it was. "Whatzit?"

"You can't go…digging holes…Do you not realize it looks like seventy cadaver dogs have attacked the place?"

Will thrust Jefferson away from him and smoothed down his sleeves. The sun was now setting, and the bitter cold was recommencing its journey, though it was nowhere near as frosty as when he'd begun digging. "Aw. Don't look at me. There was a lady…a cocker…a spaniel…she dug the first hole." He tried to tip his hat, but he wasn't wearing a hat. Then he stood straight and put his fists on his hips. "Hey, who do you think you are? My father? Or the sheriff? Are you replacing Graham?"

Jefferson gave him a scathing look. "I may not be your father, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to tell you this," he picked up the shovel and beckoned with it at the holes, "is ridiculous." He didn't bother to tell him there currently wasn't a sheriff now that Emma had fallen through the portal. Goshdamnit, that Wraith thing was for nothing. Jefferson had to avoid thinking about how Regina got off scot-free—again—for being a truly evil person. "What are you looking for anyway? Batshit? There's some in the cave several yards up," he asserted helpfully. Though he wasn't crazy about Will, he liked him a hell of a lot more than Regina.

"No. Me flask. I left it in the library. Remembered this morning, pondered if I had already gone back to get it and buried it…"

"You made a mess for nothing," elaborated Jefferson. Feeling a smidge of pity, he beckoned the outlaw to him. "C'mon. Let's go get your flask. We'll see what we can do about the holes tomorrow. I'll give you some tequila or something if you fill them up."

"Coffee with vodka and tequila in a tankard. Make it five percent coffee."

Jefferson clasped his hand. "Done!" Then he beckoned Will to give him his hand so he could escort him to the library.

Will had sweated off his drunkenness and hadn't had a drink since he'd been battling Abu at the loneliest card game. Especially since his flask hadn't been on his hip, in its proper place. He felt very odd when he accepted Jefferson's hand, but it had nothing to do with holding a man's hand. Rather, it was because the world wasn't floating under his feet like normal. He'd always loved the feeling of forever being on a ship. Feeling the solid ground beneath his feet seemed so whacky to him he barked on a laugh. He'd been so busy moving around that until now, he hadn't noticed.

Beyond that, however, he was weak from barely eating all day, and he wasn't hydrated enough. So he did stumble on his journey. Will was used to being underfed because eating hindered the drunken feeling. He had a tendency to choose alcohol over food. But he'd never felt hunger when there hadn't been a bottle to silence it before today.

Well, maybe thirty-seven years ago…twenty-eight plus however long he hadn't been sober prior to the curse…er, twenty-nine. He'd forgotten there'd been a year since Emma restarted that clock over the library…

…the library…held his most valuable treasure.

Jefferson had been scrunching his nose and clearly concentrating hard on the trees as they made their way out of the forest.

"I need a shower," Will guessed. "Don't I, mate?"

"You sure do," sang Jefferson. "But I'm not going to hold that…" he stumbled, "against…you." As he lost his balance and started to tumble to the lake, he shoved Will's hand away and released it so he wouldn't come with him. He'd stepped too hard on fragile ground. Slid straight into the water. At this point, the sun was grazing the horizon, and a log came and walloped Jefferson on the head. Will's heart pounded frantically when he saw a lot of blood in the water.

Jefferson's head broke the surface. He looked like he had spiraling lines in his eyes. "Bit my tongue," he rasped, spitting out mouthfuls of water. "And I bit it good."

As he climbed out of the lake, an alligator was readying itself to eat him. It missed him by half an inch and snapped its mouth shut so hard it broke several teeth.

Will yanked Jefferson out of the alligator's reach as the reptile seemed to be trying to figure out if it wanted to stay in the lake (where it was plainly comfortable) or shimmy out. Will wasn't going to give it a chance to chase them. "Think the sheriff could shoot that thing between the eyes…and kill it?"

Jefferson scratched the side of his nose as he eyed Will a bit skittishly. He hadn't seen the alligator yet. "We are currently a land without a sheriff." Then he swung his neck back so he could glance at whatever Will had made it plain had been trying to eat him. Jefferson's wild guess had been a shark.

When he saw the reptile's hungry yellow eyes, he shoved Will on his way and nearly twisted his ankle in effort to move on. "That look in its eyes…" He returned his gaze forward. "So creepy! I'd rather be eaten by a shark any day. Or a jabberwocky."

"Oh, mate, the jabberwocky…can't face it without a sword."

Jefferson was trying to shake like a dog. He tore off his midnight blue cape and wrung it out. He tilted his head and whacked its higher side to make water sail out of his ear then tilted it to the other side to do the same to the other ear. He coughed up so much water on purpose Will couldn't believe he'd swallowed that much in the short time he'd been in the lake.

Seeing Will's baffled look, Jefferson answered apologetically, "Swallowed ninety percent through my nostrils, got a big gulp of water that I swallowed heartily thanks to the shock of nearly biting my tongue off. Can't believe I'm not slurring after that, but my tongue barely hurts."

"You probably bit a part of your tongue that doesn't help with the talking thing," suggested Will smoothly, as if he knew such things. As if he were an expert on tongues and had a display of them in his tent.

"No…" Jefferson fiddled with his tongue, seeming to touch it to all his teeth. "I guess that thing I bit wasn't my tongue after all, but the inside of my cheek. That's where it's tender, but being clonked on the head." He shrugged flamboyantly. "Confusion and all that. We're all a little mad here…I am the Mad Hatter, after all." His eyes bulged slightly before going back to normal. "Won't lie and say I'm entirely sane, even without that bloody branch, thanks to that Queen of Hearts detaching my head from my body. Off with my head alright. Blaspheme that woman! And you slept with her."

Will patted Jefferson's shoulder. "I wasn't in me right frame of mind when I did it, again, and she did manipulate me. So please stop bringing that up, because that's one of the things I'm most ashamed of meself for…part of why I drink so heavily, to cover me shame. Though, honestly, it is mostly because life is dull as an unsharpened knife. But knowing what I know now, if the Queen approached me with that manipulative arch of hers, I'd tell her to stuff it in her boots and eat it. Then," he clasped his hands against his cheek and fluttered his lashes like butterflies, "it'd be off with my head."

"Well," Jefferson remarked dryly, "we'd be twins in that case…like Scar and Kovu. Joined by our identical scars."

Will couldn't help smiling wistfully. "That would've been more fun than being played for a fool."

Darkness smothered the exterior of the forest as they stepped past the final trees. They could barely walk without fumbling, so the two of them stopped in unison to allow their eyes to grasp what they had to work with. Since they were up to no good and would not be sending Belle an invitation stating they'd like to goose her library, they had no interest in using a light to make seeing the streets easier—and accordingly, drawing attention to themselves.

Jefferson was a moth; therefore, he was stocked with plenty of matches about his soaked cape pockets. But seeing if they were dry in their box and striking them was not on his current to-do list.

Though if it were several hours later and everyone in Storybrooke except him and Will were asleep, he'd definitely try to strike one.

There was a shadow lying so thick and long that Jefferson mistook it for a boa constrictor at first. When he first glimpsed it, his mind quickly concluded it'd escaped a zoo and traveled several hundreds of miles in stealth. From the way Will flinched when he glanced at it, Jefferson knew he had that same notion. Before Will got his sights on it, Jefferson had already realized it was a shadow and his heart was slowing down. Nonetheless, witnessing Will's hard flinch made him feel better about his own fear.

"Things that go bump in the night don't tend to frighten me." Will reached his dry tongue over his lips. "What's I jumping at snakes for? So what if it was a boa constrictor? Doesn't mean it's gonna eat me, and if it does, not like I'm going to feel a thing." He shuddered from the shoulders as he stepped hard on the shadow and did a kind of kicking dance. That looked more like a karate move than a dance one.

"I'd feel better if I had a sword," offered Jefferson, shaking his head rapidly to get some more water out of his ears. It was then that he finally noticed the sharp pain in his knee. The kind of pain that doesn't hurt on impact but give it a few minutes, the throbbing escalates silently until the agony is nearly unbearable. Without meaning to, he let out a yelp as it intensified for one gut-stabbing moment. He could still feel it the next instant, but it was as if his body was adjusting to it.

With a sigh of obligation, he reached in his midnight blue cape and pulled out two vials. He hadn't stopped walking, but he was trying to figure out which of the vials contained rubbing alcohol and which one contained a few drops of varnishing potion. The rubbing alcohol was clear and the vial half-full; the varnishing potion was light green. Even so, with the shoddy light provided, it was difficult to be sure which was the correct vial. He finally picked one and allowed several drops to sizzle over his fresh wound. Then he stuffed both vials back into his pocket and zipped it shut.

When his wound hardened, it occurred to him he switched the vials around in his fingers while trying to open the right one. Groaning, he knuckled his forehead.

Then they were at the library, so he lost interest in his varnished knee. Will was sliding some twigs in the library's lock, wide-eyed with excitement.

"Did you pick locks in Wonderland?"

"The Queen forbade me from entering certain rooms…and nobody forbids me," he replied as the lock clicked. "Though one might say…how the heck are the locks the same here as there? Well, it's all a stroke of math. Math never changes, no matter what world we're in, eh? Though I'm bad at math, so I'm going off what people whisper in taverns." He stood and thrust the door open with his shoulder then beckoned Jefferson inside, making a puppy-dog face when he did so.

Jefferson had a tingly feeling in his stomach when he entered the library. Holding his hands over his ribs, his cape slung over his shoulder. It smelled a lot cleaner in here than the last time they'd visited, and the dust had been greatly reduced.

Will shuffled into the building after Jefferson and quietly shut the door behind him. Jefferson sprang cautiously several feet from the door then felt his drenched cape until he secured the pocket he wanted. Unzipping it with deft fingers, he whipped out his box of matches and struck one then held it up.

Glinting made him whirl his head. Spotting what he was hunting for, he shook the flame out then—swift as a lizard's tongue—he thrust his body to the shelf as if the shelf were a fly. He let his fingers crawl the edge of the shelf until his hand cupped the candle.

It took him no time at all to light the Yankee Doodle candle and thrust it against Will's chest. "Mm, birthday cake…" Then Will made a face. "First sniff, yum, but the longer I inhale this stuff…it's too sweet for me."

"You're gay, aren't you?" Jefferson teased. Just to lighten the air a bit because he didn't think the candle was doing a good enough job. Besides which, he had memories of Priscilla smelling very sweet. Grace also smelled quite sweet. There was a sweetness about the natural scent of the girls Jefferson had been closest to, so he couldn't imagine a straight man waffling over something smelling "too" sweet at second whiff.

Though maybe this birthday cake thing because now that Jefferson had been inhaling it for fifteen seconds, it occurred to him it smelled like it'd expired thirty years ago. And was indeed sweet in a grotesque way after the first hit. He'd never imagined a birthday-scented candle could work for Halloween, but this one could send tremors of creepiness through one's bloodstream.

"Cora didn't smell sweet," Will enlightened gruffly. "She smelled like broken glass. Now, I'm not talking about her perfume. I mean her natural smell…which I highly doubt you've smelled, even being in Wonderland and all that. She buried her natural scent under a lot of perfume and body oils…which were floral, yes, but not as sweet as this."

Scanning for the flask, Jefferson inquired conversationally, "What does broken glass smell like?"

"You have to smell it to know what I'm yakking about. I mean to say, that's the only way I could describe the scent. Broken glass. I guess mostly like having a large piece of glass wedged in your foot, so perhaps it had a bloody scent. No idea, just know when I smelled it, it brought broken glass to—there it is!" Will placed the candle on Belle's desk then flung himself at the flask so hard he knocked several books to the floor.

Jefferson bent to pluck up the books and place them sideways on the shelves. He was watching Will with affection twinkling in his gaze.

Clutching his flask against his chest as if it were his toddler son he'd presumed dead, Will asked with love in his voice, "You think the Dark One knows this is my flask?"

Jefferson tweaked his own nose, trying to get more water out of his brain. Apologetically, he answered, "It has your initials on it. He's not stupid." Jefferson patted Will on the back then started to walk off.

And he saw his gun staring at him in the candle's light. Jefferson was so surprised—he felt like someone had punched him so hard in the stomach the pressure had leapt for his nose and it was his nose that felt pain—that he swore unconsciously. Words Will had never heard anyone have the guts to say aloud fell from Jefferson's lips without his awareness.

Very carefully, he reached for the gun and held it at arm's length. "I stand here," he said, his breath coming out in smoky puffs, "finding you amusing for forgetting your flask for a while…but I don't have a drinking problem. What's my excuse for flat-out not realizing I left this baby here…and not even thinking about this beast again until I set my eyes on it?" Bringing its cold, hard side to his forehead, he speculated in embarrassment and bafflement, "I guess I did earn my name Mad Hatter after all. I'm insane." He sank to his thighs and pressed the muzzle against his forehead, his fingers stroking the trigger.

In a brave move, Will knocked the gun out of Jefferson's hand with a bold backhand slap to the gun. "We're not playing Russian roulette," he said gruffly, even as he continued to cradle the flask lovingly against his chest. "That thing might be loaded."

"Well, of course it's loaded!" Jefferson held out the gun and indicated, "But it has the safety on."

Will flinched at the gun being so near his nose. "Not if it's broken, mate. So please, don't aim that thing at your head. Or I'll give you a bump to rival the one Snow gave Charming when they first met."

It was the oddest conversation Jefferson had ever had, and he was the Mad Hatter. "Fine," he agreed with a crooked smile, turning his head upside down and twinkling his eyes at the Knave of Hearts. "I won't point the gun at myself…as long as you are nearby."

He nearly laughed to himself when he saw the expression of appall on Will's mug. After several seconds digesting Jefferson's words with horror, Will's mouth dropped open.

Reaching for the gun, flinchingly, Will remarked, "Fine then, I'll just have to take it from you."

Jefferson easily tucked it away from Will, putting it within his soaked clothing where Will couldn't reach. Shaking his finger at the shorter man, Jefferson made a noise of dissent. "It's my gun, punk. You're not controlling it. Besides, someone who doesn't know how to handle it might accidentally set it off."

Will paused for a second, frowning. "You are talking about the gun, right?"

Jefferson smiled mysteriously then vanished from the library. Leaving Will and his flask alone.

Will—being Will—forgot about Jefferson two seconds later and plodded out of the library to find some liquor to steal. He left the library not only unlocked but wide open. The door touching the wall so hard its knob threatened to break a hole in the brick. If only the knob were made of steel.

As for the candle, completely gone from Will's peripheral cognizance, it burned until the wax rose to smother it. Then the flame died, leaving behind a wisp of smoke that floated with the horror-movie too-sweet expired birthday cake scent.